Afghanistan Announced Second Phase of Security Handover

Hamid Karzai

Afghanistan’s president announced on November 27, 2011 that a second group of areas where security operations would be handed over from NATO to Afghan troops. This action could place half of the country’s population under Afghan control.

President Hamid Karzai called this decision the “second tranche” as the key moment of the withdrawal of U.S. and gradually NATO troops from Afghan soil in 2014. With this decision the over half of the country’s population would be covered by the Transition Process.

Karzai has decreed that districts of Balkh, Takhar, Daikundi, Samangan, Kabul and Nimroz as ready for handover. Other locations have also been listed including the violent sectors of Helmand, which has been center of Afghan conflicts for years. (AV)